Lietuvos Prezidento asmens adjutanto tarnyba XX a. 3–4 dešimtmečiuose

Abstract

The article analyses the activities of six Lithuanian military officers who served as the adjutants to the President of the Republic of Lithuania in the 1920s–1930s. The article reveals short biographies of adjutants Pranas Tamasauskas, Aloyzas Valusis, Tadas Sakmanas, Vaclovas Sliogeris, Stepas Žukaitis and Jonas Mikaliūnas, their duties and the relationship with the President. The article is based on historical documents, historiography, published memoirs of adjutant Vaclovas Sliogeris and other materials. Keywords: President’s security, Lithuanian military officers, Antanas Smetona, adjutant service. Summary Though the position of personal adjutant to the President does no longer exist in the present day Republic of Lithuania, historical photographs and news films showcasing the period of the First Republic of Lithuania (1918–1940) often portray the President accompanied by a military officer, his personal adjutant. Though the adjutant’s position is usually encountered in armed forces and means an assistant to the officer of a higher rank, during the interwar period the heads of state of a number of countries – Poland, Germany, Latvia and others – used to be accompanied by their adjutants, playing an interesting historical role. The article is dedicated to the analysis of the service of personal adjutant to the President of Lithuania in the period from 1919 to 1940. By referring to the files of the service of the military officers who acted in the capacity of the President’s adjutants, published memoirs and historiography, the author analyses the peculiarities of the service of personal adjutants to President Aleksandras Stulginskis, President Kazys Grinius and President Antanas Smetona, provides information on the biographies of the military officers who served as the President’s adjutants – Pranas Tamasauskas, Aloyzas Valusis, Tadas Sakmanas, Vaclovas Sliogeris, Stepas Žukaitis, Jonas Mikaliūnas – and updates the chronology of their service. In addition to the duties of the President’s adjutant analysed in the article, the author also describes how individual adjutants succeeded in establishing personal relations with the President and his milieu. The research revealed that quality work performed in the adjutant’s service created conditions for the military officers to climb the career ladder and to earn state awards. The research reveals that the personal adjutant to the President did not only serve the functions of a close valet, an attendant, a personal aide but also a security officer. The adjutant was also the chief of the President’s personal military security who would not only inform the Special Department of the Presidential Palace and the State Security Department about the President’s daily schedule but was also personally responsible for the President’s security. Though quite a few conspiracies were organised against President Smetona, there was not a single case when the adjutant was required to shield the President with his body or otherwise defend the President from the attacks that would pose a risk to his health and life. The article sheds more light on the operation of the President’s withdrawal to the West on June 15, 1940, in which the then adjutant to the President was also involved. After the occupation of June 1940, the lives of the President’s former adjutants took quite different turns: three of them (Valusis, Tamasauskas and Sliogeris) fled to the West in the period 1940–1944 and got involved in the activities of Lithuanians in exile after the war, whereas others (Sakmanas, Žukaitis) continued their service in Lithuania, and either suffered brutal Soviet repressions after 1945 or, like Mikaliūnas, was arrested by Soviet NKVD and died in lager in Syberia.